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Deflated galaxy

We are surrounded by a flattened beach ball of dark matter, according to results presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington DC. The halo appears to be roughly perpendicular to the galaxy’s disc of stars. “It begs the question of how our galaxy formed in its present orientation,” says David Law of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Four legs old

The oldest known footprints made by a four-legged vertebrate have been found in the Holy Cross mountains, Poland. The tetrapod tracks are 397 million years old, pushing back the previous record by around …

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